Tête en bas

During all those months I’ve been traveling in english-speaking country, I discovered that they are a couple of english word that I’ll never know how to say properly. I remember repeating “post-card” so many time, in so many shop, hoping that someone will finally understand that I’m just looking for a nice picture, that you can write on the back, and send by the post. I’ve always wander why no one seems to understand me on this one.

I had exactly the same problem when trying to say “Ballarat” .Trying tons of different intonations, changing the accentuation, the tone… sometime, people understand. But most of the time, it took me a couple of try…

Ballarat is one of those australian cities, than suddenly rise in the middle of nowhere, because someone find some gold nearby. Apart from that, there’s nothing really inspiring to say about it. Two main streets, a nice railway station, a few restaurant and shop… I though it was all. And the first few preview I had, from the train station to the car rental, and then when driving through were not really inspiring… until we discovered a botanical garden. As I already wrote, botanical garden seems to be a must do in all australian city. So after Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart, we decide to add Ballarat to the list.

We start our visit on the shore of Wendouree Lake, under a blue sky, and a sun who was telling us that is summer job was over on this side of earth, and that we was slowly going to warm up the north hemisphere again. To bad for those who expected warm temperature all year long in Melbourne…

Iris loves collecting strange animal, and I think that’s one of the thing she likes the most in Australia. One more time, there was plenty of interesting creatures. Most of them were supposed, I think, to be duck. I might need some confirmation though…

We left the lake just after that, to cross a street, discovering that the official botanical garden was on the other side. This was just a nice little park. The gardens were even nicer, full of colors and beautiful trees. Of course, not as impressive as the other we’ve visited in Australia, but remember that Ballarat is only 85,000 habitants.